Advertisement marketplace

ABSTRACT

A marketplace (or aftermarket) for advertisements or ad combinations is established. A first on-line advertisement is identified in which a performance of the first advertisement during a past ad campaign is above a threshold. A second on-line advertisement is identified based on a matching criterion between the first and second advertisements, in which a performance of the second advertisement during a past ad campaign is lower than the first advertisement. The first advertisement or a representation of the first advertisement and performance data of the first advertisement are provided to a sponsor of the second advertisement.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of, and claims priority under 35U.S.C. § 120 to, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/873,079, filed onOct. 16, 2007. The disclosure of which is incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This document generally relates to information management.

BACKGROUND

On-line advertisements allow advertisers to reach a wide range ofaudiences through the Internet. The advertisements can be placed atspecific areas of specific web pages. For example, a department storemay place an advertisement on the home page of an on-line news web site.The advertisements can be associated with specific keywords and appearas sponsored links on search result web pages in response to user queryhaving search terms that match the specific keywords associated with theadvertisements. For example, when a user types the keyword “plumbing”into a search engine, the search results web page may include, inaddition to the search results, a list of advertisements shown assponsored links placed at an area of the search results page. Thesponsored link may include a title, a short text description of theproduct or service being advertised, an URL of the advertiser, and alocation of the advertiser. Some of the search results can also beadvertisements. For example, the search results for the keyword“plumbing” may include web pages of plumbing services. Each searchresult may include a title, a snippet of the text in the web page, andan URL of the web page.

Advertisers benefit from the advertisements when users click on linksassociated with the advertisements or otherwise act on theadvertisements to purchase products or services being advertised.Whether an advertisement performs well may depend on a number offactors, such as whether the advertisement appears near the top of asearch results page so that the users can see the advertisement withouthaving to scroll down several pages. The performance of an advertisementmay depend on the quality of the advertisement, such as whether the textdescription of the advertisement is interesting and provides a positiveimpression to the user.

SUMMARY

This document describes a marketplace (or aftermarket) foradvertisements or ad combinations. An ad combination refers to acombination of an advertisement and one or more other components, suchas keywords or matching configuration associated with the advertisement.The matching configuration can include, for example, a landing web page.An infrastructure is provided for buying or selling advertisements or adcombinations after the advertisements or ad combinations have been usedby advertisers in ad campaigns. Some measure of performance of theadvertisements or ad combinations may be available. For example, theclick-through rate or conversion rate of an advertisement or adcombination can be provided to allow potential buyers to evaluate theadvertisement or ad combination before purchasing. The advertisements orad combinations can be anonymized or generalized so that the buyercannot identify the sponsors of the advertisements or ad combinations.The owners of the advertisements can be rewarded when theiradvertisements are purchased by others.

In general, in one aspect, a first on-line advertisement is identifiedin which a performance of the first advertisement during a past adcampaign is above a threshold; a second on-line advertisement isidentified based on a matching criterion between the first and secondadvertisements, in which a performance of the second advertisementduring a past ad campaign is lower than the first advertisement; and thefirst advertisement or a representation of the first advertisement andperformance data of the first advertisement are provided to a sponsor ofthe second advertisement.

Implementations may include one or more of the following. Aclick-through rate or a conversion rate of the first advertisement canbe identified to determine the performance of the first advertisement.Identifying the second on-line advertisement based on a matchingcriterion can include identifying the second advertisement based on asimilarity between at least one of (a) one or more keywords associatedwith the first advertisement and one or more keywords associated withthe second advertisement, or (b) text of the first advertisement andtext of the second advertisement. Identifying the second advertisementcan include identifying a second advertisement associated with a secondgeographical region not overlapping a first geographical regionassociated with the first advertisement.

A portion of the first advertisement can be modified to target a marketfor which the second advertisement targets. The first advertisement canbe anonymized, and an anonymized advertisement can be provided to thesponsor of the second advertisement. Anonymizing the first advertisementcan include removing portions of the first advertisement that can beused to identify a sponsor of the first advertisement. The firstadvertisement can be translated and the translated first advertisementcan be provided to the sponsor of the second advertisement. A componentassociated with the first advertisement or a representation of thecomponent associated with the first advertisement can be provided to thesponsor of the second advertisement, in which the component includes akeyword or a landing web page associated with the first advertisement.Identifying the second on-line advertisement can include comparing thefirst advertisement and a first component associated with the firstadvertisement with a second advertisement and a second componentassociated with the second advertisement, in which the first and secondcomponents include at least one of (a) one or more keywords associatedwith the corresponding advertisement, or (b) a landing web page for thecorresponding advertisement.

In general, in another aspect, a user interface is provided to enable auser to search on-line advertisements; an input is received from theuser indicating a selection of one of the advertisements; the selectedadvertisement is anonymized; and the anonymized advertisement andperformance data associated with the advertisement are provided to theuser, the performance data indicating a performance of the selectedadvertisement during a past ad campaign.

Implementations may include one or more of the following. A componentassociated with the advertisement or a representation of the componentassociated with the advertisement can be provided to the user, in whichthe component includes at least one of a keyword or a landing web pageassociated with the selected advertisement.

In general, in another aspect, an on-line advertisement marketplace isenabled, including displaying on-line advertisements or representationsof the on-line advertisements and performance data of the on-lineadvertisements, and accepting instructions for purchasing one or more ofthe on-line advertisements.

Implementations may include one or more of the following. Displayingrepresentations of the on-line advertisements can include displayinganonymized versions of the on-line advertisements. Customized versionsof the on-line advertisements can be automatically generated byreplacing locations or names in the on-line advertisements with thelocations or names of potential buyers, and the customized versions ofthe on-line advertisements can be displayed. Keywords for theautomatically generated customized versions of the on-lineadvertisements can be automatically determined.

In general, in another aspect, a storage device is provided to storeadvertisements and performance data indicating performance of theadvertisements during past ad campaigns; and a matching engine isprovided to match a second advertisement with a first advertisement andprovide the first advertisement or a representation of the firstadvertisement, and the performance data associated with the firstadvertisement, to a sponsor of the second advertisement.

Implementations may include one or more of the following. Theperformance data can include at least one of a click-through rate and aconversion rate. The matching engine can identify the firstadvertisement by identifying an advertisement having a performance abovea threshold. The matching engine can identify the second advertisementby identifying an advertisement having a performance below thethreshold. The matching engine can match the second advertisement withthe first advertisement based on a similarity between at least one of(a) one or more keywords associated with the first advertisement and oneor more keywords associated with the second advertisement, or (b) textof the first advertisement and text of the second advertisement. Anediting engine can be provided to modify the first advertisement totarget a market for which the second advertisement targets. Ananonymizing engine can be provided to modify the first advertisement toremove portions of the advertisement that can be used to identify asponsor of the advertisement. A translation engine can be provided totranslate the advertisement.

In general, in another aspect, a system includes means for identifying afirst on-line advertisement in which a performance of the firstadvertisement during a past ad campaign is above a threshold; means foridentifying a second on-line advertisement based on a matching criterionbetween the first and second advertisements, in which a performance ofthe second advertisement during a past ad campaign is lower than thefirst advertisement; and means for providing the first advertisement ora representation of the first advertisement and performance data of thefirst advertisement to a sponsor of the second advertisement.

These and other aspects and features, and combinations of them, may beexpressed as methods, apparatus, systems, means for performingfunctions, program products, and in other ways.

The details of one or more embodiments are set forth in the accompanyingdrawings and the description below. Other features, objects, andadvantages of the invention will be apparent from the description anddrawings, and from the claims.

DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is diagram of an example system that facilitates a marketplacefor advertisements.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of an example graphical user interface.

FIG. 3 is a diagram of an example an ad combo.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of examples of original ads and anonymizedadvertisements.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of an example process for identifying potentialbuyers of an advertisement.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an example process for identifying anadvertisement.

FIG. 7 shows a schematic representation of a general computing system.

Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 is diagram of an example system 100 that facilitates amarketplace for advertisements (or ads). Though reference is made tosupporting advertising, other forms of sponsored and non-sponsoredcontent can be distributed by the system 100. An ads matchmaker 102searches an ads depository 104 to find a high performing ad, andprovides the high performing ad and associated performance data to apotential buyer 106. The performance data can include, e.g., aclick-through rate or a conversion rate of the ad during past adcampaigns. Providing the performance data allows the potential buyer 106to better evaluate whether to purchase the high performing ad. The adscan be, e.g., on-line or mobile textual ads.

The performance of an ad may be influenced by a combination of factorsassociated with the ad, such as keywords associated with the ad,location of the ad on the web property, content of the ad, and thelanding page of the advertiser. The ad and one or more other factorsassociated with the ad will be referred to as an ad combination or “adcombo.” The ads matchmaker 102 identifies a high performing ad combofrom the ads depository 104 and provides the high performing ad comboand associated performance data to the potential buyer 106. A highperforming ad can be one that exceeds a predetermined performance metric(e.g., historical click-throughs).

In the examples below, the system 100 processes high performing adcombos, but similar techniques can also be applied to the processing ofhigh performing ads. While the examples describe processing of textualads, similar techniques can be applied to ads having, e.g., images,video, and audio. Further, while the examples describe delivery of adsin a web environment, other delivery channels (e.g., radio, gaming,television, printed publication, etc.) are possible.

In some implementations, the ads matchmaker 102 allows potential buyers106 to sign up as members of the ads marketplace. The ads matchmaker 102can provide a graphical user interface (GUI) to show a list ofpredetermined products or services, such as plumbers, carpenters,electricians, gardeners, accountants, insurance brokers, real estateagents, dentists, web design consultants, etc. A potential buyer 106 canselect one or more of the predetermined products or services. The adsmatchmaker 102 searches the ads depository 104 to find high performingad combos related to the selected products or services, and provides alist of high performing ad combos ranked by, e.g., similarity to theproducts or services selected by the buyer 106.

The ads matchmaker 102, the potential buyers 106, and the sponsor of adcombo 116 can be connected to each other by a network 109, such as alocal area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), the Internet, anyother type of network, or any combination of types of networks. In someimplementations, one or more of the ads matchmaker 102, the adsdepository 104, and the rating engine 112 may be integrated into asingle server.

Referring to FIG. 2, an example graphical user interface 120 showsoriginal ad combos 122, the performance 124 of the original ad combos122, and examples of customized ad combos 124 to potential buyers. Inthis example, the potential buyer is a company named “PipesRUs”. In thecustomized ad combos 126, the company name “TubeDrainers” in theoriginal ad combos 122 are replaced by the potential buyer company name“PipesRUs”.

For example, the potential buyer can click on buttons 128 to look upkeywords associated with the original ad combos 122. The potential buyercan click on buttons 142 to select particular ad combos, click onbuttons 144 to edit the customized ad combos 126, and click on buttons146 to edit the keywords associated with the customized ad combos 126.

In some examples, the ads matchmaker 102 identifies the potential buyer106 by searching the ads depository 104 to identify owners of ad comboswho may be interested in purchasing other ad combos. For example, theads matchmaker 102 searches for a pair of high performing and lowperforming ad combos that are correlated to each other, e.g., related tosimilar products or services. A high performing ad combo related to aplumbing service may be matched with a low performing ad combo alsorelated to a plumbing service. The sponsor (or owner) of the lowperforming ad combo is identified as a potential buyer 106.

In matching the high performing ad combo and the potential buyer 106,the ads matchmaker 102 may select a high performing ad combo thattargets a geographical region different from that of the potentialbuyer. For example, a plumber who is marketing in the Chicago area hascreated high performing ad combos. The ad combo may be of interest toplumbers in other geographical locations, e.g., other parts of theUnited States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Withtranslation (of keyword combinations and the ad text), the ad comboproduced by the Chicago plumber may be of interest for plumbersworldwide. Selling or licensing the high performing ad combo to plumbersin areas outside of the Chicago area can provide additional revenue tothe plumber marketing in the Chicago area while at the same time notaffecting his plumbing business in the Chicago area.

After the ads matchmaker 102 identifies a potential buyer 106 (who is asponsor of a lower performing ad combo), the ads matchmaker 102 may senda message to the potential buyer 106 to inquire whether the potentialbuyer 106 is interested in obtaining information about higher performingads relevant to his or her ad combo. The message may include a link to aweb page that provides the graphical user interface 120.

The ads matchmaker 102 may show, via the GUI 120, a list of higherperforming ad combos ranked by, e.g., similarity to the ad combosponsored by the potential buyer 106. In some implementations, the adsmatchmaker 102 does not show the content of the ad combos (e.g., adtext, keywords, etc.) to the buyer 106 until the buyer 106 decides tobuy the ad combo. For each ad combo to be offered to the buyer 106, theads matchmaker 102 shows a general description of the ad combo and itsperformance data (e.g., click through rate, conversion rate, number ofclicks, number of impressions, cost per click, and cost to view, etc.)The ads matchmaker 102 may require the buyer 106 to pay a fee forviewing the content of the ad combo, and a fee for purchasing the adcombo. The fees can be based on the past performance of the ad combo.

The ads matchmaker 102 may require the buyer 106 not to used thepurchased ad combo to compete in the same market (e.g., geography) asthe sponsor of the original ad combo.

The operator of the ads matchmaker 102 may also operate an ads network,in which ads are published on web sites of publishers that are membersof the ads network. The buyer 106, after purchasing the higherperforming ad combo and adding his or her product or service descriptionto the ad combo, may allow the ad combo to be shown on web sitesassociated with the ads network. Both the buyer 106 and the operator ofthe ads network may receive revenue when the ad combo is displayed,clicked on, or acted on by other users.

For each high performing ad combo, the ads matchmaker 102 may offer oneor more versions of the ad combo to the buyer 106, such as anunprocessed version, an anonymized version, or a generalized version.The anonymized and generalized versions are described below.

A feature of the system 100 is that the ads matchmaker 102 not onlyidentifies ad combos that are potentially useful to the potential buyer106, the ads matchmaker 102 also provides the potential buyer proof ofthe high performance of the high performing ad combo. For example, eventhough the plumber in New York can type the keywords “plumbers” or“plumbing service” in a search engine and find a listing of ads forplumbers or plumbing services, he will not know how well each ad hasperformed, and can only evaluate the ads based on their appearances, notby past performances. By contrast, the past performance data provided bythe ads matchmaker 102 provides an indication of future performance. Anad combo that performed well in the past is more likely to perform wellin the future.

The on-line environment favors high-performing ads. Web portals andsearch engines prefer to have fewer ads per page with higherclick-through rates rather than having many ads per page with lowerclick-through rates. High performing ad combos can be difficult toproduce. Small to medium enterprises may not have the expertise toproduce good ad combos, and hiring professional ad agencies to producethe ad combos may be time consuming and expensive. Because small andmedium enterprises and other advertisers may operate in accordance tocertain constraints, e.g., constrained spatially, temporally, and/orlanguage-wise, the ad combos can potentially be re-used outside theconstrained market by similar advertisers in non-overlapping marketsegments. The system 100 enables the re-use of existing ad combos. Thesystem 100 provides a convenient way for market entrants who do notalready have ad combos to easily find relevant ad combos, and to allowadvertisers who already have ad combos to find better performing adcombos.

The performance of an ad combo may be difficult to predict. Anadvertiser may design a new ad combo, test it on the market for a fewweeks, and finding that the new ad combo does not perform very well.Thus, it may be more cost effective to run a re-used ad combo having aproven high performance track record. An advertiser can also run a highperformance re-used, market-proven ad combo in parallel to a new,untested ad combo.

In some implementations, the ads matchmaker 102 anonymizes the highperforming ad combo before providing it to the potential buyer 106. Theanonymization may involve, e.g., removing information that can be usedto identify the owner of the high performing ad combo. Examples of adcombo content that can be anonymized include business names and theircorresponding abbreviations, person names, names of geographicallocations, and various numerical properties (e.g., dates, prices, phonenumbers, zip codes, and product properties). For example, an ad combofor a Chicago plumber may include the word “Chicago” and the URL of theplumber's company. After anonymization, the word “Chicago” and theplumber's URL may be removed. The anonymization process generates an adcombo template that includes blanks for which the identity or specificproperties of the buyer 106 can be filled in.

FIG. 3 shows an example of an ad combo 130 that includes an ad 132 and alanding web page 134. After anonymization, an anonymized ad combo 136includes an anonymized ad 138 and an anonymized landing web page 140.The anonymized ad 138 and landing web page 140 can be used as templates,where blanks can be filled in with specific information about theproduct or service of the buyer 106.

For example, referring to FIG. 4, an original ad combo 172 may includethe message “Got your cellar filled during last thunderstorm in Maine?Let TubeDrainers fix it and get rid of your pain.” After anonymization,the anonymized ad combo 174 may include the text “Got your cellar filledduring last thunderstorm in [LOCATION]? Let [COMPANY] fix it and get ridof your pain.” The placeholders [LOCATION] and [COMPANY] can be replacedby the new location and company name of the advertiser who purchased thead combo.

As an example, an original ad combo 176 may include the message “Leakingbathroom tubes? Don't worry, just call StopLeak Plumbers and we'llhandle it within 2 business days.” After anonymization, the anonymizedad combo 178 may include the text “Leaking bathroom tubes? Don't worry,just call [COMPANY] and we'll handle it within 2 business days.” Theplaceholder [COMPANY] can be replaced by the new company name of theadvertiser who purchased the ad combo 144.

The anonymization can be extended to support aliases or commonnicknames. For example, the term “big apple” (for New York) can bereplaced with the [LOCATION] placeholder, and the term “big blue” (forIBM) can be replaced with the [COMPANY] place holder.

The ads matchmaker 102 includes an anonymizer 108 to anonymize the adcombos. A number of methods can be used to anonymize an ad combo. Forexample, dictionary based filtering can be used, in which dictionariesof allowed names are used to determine which terms to let through (i.e.,not anonymize), and dictionaries of disallowed names are used todetermine which terms should be filtered (i.e., anonymized). Forexample, verbs, nouns that are not names, adverbs, adjectives, do notneed to be anonymized, whereas business names should be anonymized.Regular expressions can be used to find and filter out numerical orpartially numerical expressions, such as dates, prices, zip codes, andvarious product properties.

Natural language processing with semantic and grammatical analysis canbe used to identify nouns that may potentially be identifyinginformation (i.e., information that identifies the owner of the adcombo) and thus should be anonymized.

Machine translation can be used find identifying information. Forexample, machine translation can be used to translate an ad combobetween two or several languages, and words that are unchanged arefiltered out. In some examples, machine translation does not changenames and numerical entities, so the words that are not changed aftermachine translation are more likely to be names or numerical entities.This method can be used as a supplementary method in addition to theother methods. For example, a translation of the English phrase “Get askilled plumber in Chicago” to Norwegian can be “Få en dyktig rørleggeri Chicago”, in which the word “Chicago” is not changed after thetranslation, so Chicago can be filtered out or be made into a variablefor substitution in the ad combo template.

The system 100 includes a rating engine 112 that measures theperformance of the ad combos. The performance of an ad combo can bemeasured based on, e.g., a click-through rate (as percentage of numberof times displayed), an action-rate (the rate at which purchases occurafter clicking on the ad), and a call rate (click-to-call rate, whichmeasures the percentages of calls to salespersons that occur afterclicking on the ad). Other metrics can also be used. For example, thetotal revenue for the advertiser (i.e., action-rate*price−advertisingcost) and the number of impressions of the ad can also be used toevaluate the performance of the ad combo.

Grouping of high and low performing ad combos can be performed using aclustering method, in which certain metrics are used to compare two adcombos. For example, two ad combos can be grouped together if the numberof common words between them is high. Ad combos can be grouped togetherbased on keywords. For example, all the ad combos that have the keyword“plumber” can be grouped together.

In the implementation shown (though optional), the ads matchmaker 102includes a machine translator 110 to translate the ad combos. Forexample, the potential buyer 106 may be located in a country that uses alanguage different from the one that the ad combo is written in. Themachine translator 110 can use, e.g., statistical machine translation.The ads matchmaker 102 can include a spell checker to check for spellingerrors in the translation. The machine translations may be manuallyedited to ensure quality of the ads.

In some implementations, the ads matchmaker 102 may identify words withpossible spelling errors and provide suggestions of correct words. Forexample, words can be clustered using the Soundex algorithm so thatwords having similar pronunciation are grouped together. A word in thead combo that is not in a dictionary is compared with a cluster of wordsthat sound similarly, and if there is another word in the cluster thathas a higher likelihood (e.g., as frequency of queries or web presence),the other word is suggested as the correct word.

Suggestion of correct words can also be based on word clusters that areformed according to edit distance. The edit distance between two stringsof characters is the number of operations required to transform one ofthem into the other. Words that have slightly different spellings andhave edit distances smaller than a threshold can be grouped together.For example, “googel”, “google”, and “googlle” can be grouped together.The word in the cluster that has a higher likelihood (e.g., as frequencyof queries or web presence) is suggested as the correct word.

After an ad combo has been translated or anonymize, the ad combo can be“generalized” by comparing the translated or anonymized ad combo to theoriginal ad combo to measure the distance between the two. For example,if an anonymized ad combo is very different from the original one, thereis an indication that the anonymized ad combo can be used for other adpurposes (for example, other products or services). The anonymized adcomb is clustered with other ad combos to determine which ad purposesthe anonymized version can be used for.

For example, an ad combo templates “[SOME PRODUCT OR SERVICE] keeps thedoctor away” or “[SOME PRODUCT OR SERVICE] makes your day” can be usedfor various purposes. The placeholder [SOME PRODUCT, SERVICE] can bereplaced with, e.g., “Exercise” or “Diet”. In general, relativelygeneric (not product specific) ad texts can be used for severalpurposes.

The ads matchmaker 102 includes a rewards engine 114 to determine theamount of reward to be given to the sponsor of the high performing adcombo when the potential buyer 106 pays for viewing the content of thead combo or purchases the ad combo. The reward can be in the form of amonetary payment, a discount on future ad spending (e.g., discount infees for Google™ AdWords), or a discount on payment system use on theweb or mobile web site of the sponsor (e.g., discount in fees for GoogleCheckout). The reward can be discounts on suppliers, producers of goods,parts that the original advertiser use or sell. The reward can bediscounts on paid Google services or products (e.g., Google SearchAppliance, Google Search Appliance Mini, or Google Apps).

The reward to the sponsor of the high performing ad combo can be anup-front payment based on the fees paid by the buyer 106, and anestimation of the ad combo performance and the future revenues that canbe generated for the operator of the ads matchmaker. The ads matchmaker102 may monitor the performance of the ad combo as used by the buyer106, and reward the sponsor of the original ad combo based on themeasured performance.

The ads matchmaker 102 may also provide the potential buyer 106 with theoption of generating a new ad combo that has not been used before. Theads matchmaker 102 may request information from the buyer 106 about aproduct or service that is intended to be advertised, such as a landingpage for the product or service. The text portion of an ad combo can begenerated automatically by, e.g., automatic summarization of the productor service landing page. The ads matchmaker 102 can also search thedatabase for two or more relevant ad combos based on the type of productor service, and use the two or more ad combos as input training to anatural language generation algorithm to automatically generate the textportion for a new ad combo. Suggestions of keywords for the new ad combocan be generated by clustering the text portion of the new ad combo withthe text portions of existing ad combos, and use keywords from theclosest existing ad combo as suggestions for keywords for the newautomatically generated ad combo.

The ads are not limited to text ads, but can also include video or audioads. For example, a high performing video ad combo can be processedusing speech-to-text or automatic lip-reading analysis to generate thetext corresponding to the vide or audio. The text is analyzed toidentify portions that need to be anonymized. After anonymization, avideo or audio ad template is generated. An anonymized ad combo thatincludes the video or audio ad template, and associated performancedata, are provided to the potential buyer 106. The potential buyer 106can purchase the anonymized ad combo, add information specific to thebuyer 106 to the video or audio ad template, and use text-to-speech ortext-to-animation of faces that speak to generate the audio or video adsfor suitable use by the buyer 106.

The ad combos the methods described above can be used for other types ofmedia, e.g., television, streaming video sent over networks, or radio.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a process 150 that can be used to identify apotential buyer of a high performing advertisement. The process 150identifies a first on-line advertisement (152). The process 150identifies a second on-line advertisement based on a matching criterionbetween the first and second advertisements (154). For example, the adsmatchmaker 102 can be used to identify the first and second on-lineadvertisements that are stored in the ad depository 104.

The process 150 identifies performance data of the first advertisementindicating a performance of the first advertisement during a past adcampaign (156). For example, the performance data can be the performancedata 107 in the ads depository 104 (FIG. 1). The process 150 providesthe first advertisement or a representation of the first advertisementand the performance data to a sponsor of the second advertisement (158).For example, the sponsor can be the sponsor 116.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a process 160 that can be used to identify ahigh performing ad for a user (e.g., a new advertiser). The process 160provides a user interface to enable the user to search on-lineadvertisements (162). For example, the user interface can be thegraphical user interface 120 of FIG. 2. The process 160 receives aninput from the user indicating a selection of one of the advertisements(164). For example, the advertisements can be the advertisements 105stored in the ads depository 104. The process 160 anonymizes theselected advertisement (166). For example, the anonymizing engine 108can anonymize the selected advertisement. The process 160 provides theanonymized advertisement and performance data associated with theadvertisement to the user, the performance data indicating a performanceof the selected advertisement during a past ad campaign (168). Forexample, the performance data can be the performance data 107 stored inthe ads depository 104.

FIG. 7 shows a schematic representation of a general computing system200 that can be used to implement the system 100. Computing device 200is intended to represent various forms of digital computers, such aslaptops, desktops, workstations, personal digital assistants, servers,blade servers, mainframes, and other appropriate computers. Thecomponents shown here, their connections and relationships, and theirfunctions, are meant to be exemplary only, and are not meant to limitimplementations of the inventions described and/or claimed in thisdocument.

Computing device 200 includes a processor 202, memory 204, a storagedevice 206, a high-speed interface 208 connecting to memory 204 andhigh-speed expansion ports 210, and a low speed interface 212 connectingto low speed bus 214 and storage device 206. Each of the components 202,204, 206, 208, 210, and 212, are interconnected using various busses,and may be mounted on a common motherboard or in other manners asappropriate. The processor 202 can process instructions for executionwithin the computing device 200, including instructions stored in thememory 204 or on the storage device 206 to display graphical informationfor a GUI on an external input/output device, such as display 216coupled to high speed interface 208. In other implementations, multipleprocessors and/or multiple buses may be used, as appropriate, along withmultiple memories and types of memory. Also, multiple computing devices200 may be connected, with each device providing portions of thenecessary operations (e.g., as a server bank, a group of blade servers,or a multi-processor system).

The memory 204 stores information within the computing device 200. Inone implementation, the memory 204 is a volatile memory unit or units.In another implementation, the memory 204 is a non-volatile memory unitor units. The memory 204 may also be another form of computer-readablemedium, such as a magnetic or optical disk.

The storage device 206 is capable of providing mass storage for thecomputing device 200. In one implementation, the storage device 206 maybe or contain a computer-readable medium, such as a floppy disk device,a hard disk device, an optical disk device, or a tape device, a flashmemory or other similar solid state memory device, or an array ofdevices, including devices in a storage area network or otherconfigurations. A computer program product can be tangibly embodied inan information carrier. The computer program product may also containinstructions that, when executed, perform one or more methods, such asthose described above. The information carrier is a computer- ormachine-readable medium, such as the memory 204, the storage device 206,memory on processor 202, or a propagated signal.

The high speed controller 208 manages bandwidth-intensive operations forthe computing device 200, while the low speed controller 212 manageslower bandwidth-intensive operations. Such allocation of functions isexemplary only. In one implementation, the high-speed controller 208 iscoupled to memory 204, display 216 (e.g., through a graphics processoror accelerator), and to high-speed expansion ports 210, which may acceptvarious expansion cards (not shown). In the implementation, low-speedcontroller 212 is coupled to storage device 206 and low-speed expansionport 214. The low-speed expansion port, which may include variouscommunication ports (e.g., USB, Bluetooth, Ethernet, wireless Ethernet)may be coupled to one or more input/output devices, such as a keyboard,a pointing device, a scanner, or a networking device such as a switch orrouter, e.g., through a network adapter.

The computing device 200 may be implemented in a number of differentforms, as shown in the figure. For example, it may be implemented as astandard server 220, or multiple times in a group of such servers. Itmay also be implemented as part of a rack server system 224. Inaddition, it may be implemented in a personal computer such as a laptopcomputer 222. Each of such devices (e.g., standard server, rack serversystem, personal computer, laptop computer) may contain one or more ofcomputing device 200, and an entire system may be made up of multiplecomputing devices 200 communicating with each other.

Various implementations of the systems and techniques described here canbe realized in digital electronic circuitry, integrated circuitry,specially designed ASICs (application specific integrated circuits),computer hardware, firmware, software, and/or combinations thereof.These various implementations can include implementation in one or morecomputer programs that are executable and/or interpretable on aprogrammable system including at least one programmable processor, whichmay be special or general purpose, coupled to receive data andinstructions from, and to transmit data and instructions to, a storagesystem, at least one input device, and at least one output device.

These computer programs (also known as programs, software, softwareapplications or code) include machine instructions for a programmableprocessor, and can be implemented in a high-level procedural and/orobject-oriented programming language, and/or in assembly/machinelanguage. As used herein, the terms “machine-readable medium”“computer-readable medium” refers to any computer program product,apparatus and/or device (e.g., magnetic discs, optical disks, memory,Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs)) used to provide machine instructionsand/or data to a programmable processor, including a machine-readablemedium that receives machine instructions as a machine-readable signal.The term “machine-readable signal” refers to any signal used to providemachine instructions and/or data to a programmable processor.

To provide for interaction with a user, the systems and techniquesdescribed here can be implemented on a computer having a display device(e.g., a CRT (cathode ray tube) or LCD (liquid crystal display) monitor)for displaying information to the user and a keyboard and a pointingdevice (e.g., a mouse, trackball, touch-sensitive screen, or iDrive-likecomponent) by which the user can provide input to the computer. Otherkinds of devices can be used to provide for interaction with a user aswell; for example, feedback provided to the user can be any form ofsensory feedback (e.g., visual feedback, auditory feedback, or tactilefeedback); and input from the user can be received in any form,including acoustic, speech, or tactile input.

The systems and techniques described here can be implemented in acomputing system that includes a back end component (e.g., as a dataserver), or that includes a middleware component (e.g., an applicationserver), or that includes a front end component (e.g., a client computerhaving a graphical user interface or a Web browser through which a usercan interact with an implementation of the systems and techniquesdescribed here), or any combination of such back end, middleware, orfront end components. The components of the system can be interconnectedby any form or medium of digital data communication (e.g., acommunication network). Examples of communication networks include alocal area network (“LAN”), a wide area network (“WAN”), and theInternet.

The computing system can include clients and servers. A client andserver are generally remote from each other and typically interactthrough a communication network. The relationship of client and serverarises by virtue of computer programs running on the respectivecomputers and having a client-server relationship to each other.

A number of embodiments of the invention have been described.Nevertheless, it will be understood that various modifications may bemade without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Forexample, various forms of the flows shown above may be used, with stepsre-ordered, added, or removed. Also, although several applications andmethods have been described, it should be recognized that numerous otherapplications are contemplated.

Different types of user interfaces can be used.

In addition, the logic flows depicted in the figures do not require theparticular order shown, or sequential order, to achieve desirableresults. Other steps may be provided, or steps may be eliminated, fromthe described flows, and other components may be added to, or removedfrom, the described systems. Accordingly, other implementations arewithin the scope of the following claims.

1-18. (canceled)
 19. A computer implemented method comprising:generating, by a computing device, an anonymized version of a firstcontent item, by: transmitting, to a translation engine, text of thefirst content item, receiving, from the translation engine, translatedtext of the sent text, comparing the sent text to the receivedtranslated text to identify one or more words that are unchanged, andremoving the unchanged words from the text of the first content item togenerate the anonymized version of the first content item; adding, bythe computing device, content with content provided by a candidatesponsor to the anonymized version of the content item to create a secondcontent item, different from the first content item; and distributing,for the candidate sponsor and over the communications network, thesecond content item to one or more user devices. 20-25. (canceled)
 26. Asystem comprising: an anonymizer, executed by a computing device,configured to: generate an anonymized version of a first content itemby: transmitting, to a translation engine, text of the first contentitem, receiving, from the translation engine, translated text of thesent text, comparing the sent text to the received translated text toidentify one or more words that are unchanged, and removing theunchanged words from the text of the first content item to generate theanonymized version of the first content item; replace at least onevisual element of the anonymized version of the content item withcontent provided by a candidate sponsor to create a second content item,different from the first content item; and distribute, for the candidatesponsor and over the communications network, the second content item toone or more user devices. 27-32. (canceled)
 33. A computer storageapparatus storing instructions that upon execution by one or moreprocessors cause the one or more processors to perform operationscomprising: generating an anonymized version of a first content item by:transmitting, to a translation engine, text of the first content item,receiving, from the translation engine, translated text of the senttext, comparing the sent text to the received translated text toidentify one or more words that are unchanged, and removing theunchanged words from the text of the first content item to generate theanonymized version of the first content item; adding content provided bya candidate sponsor to the anonymized version of the content item tocreate a second content item, different from the first content item; anddistributing for the candidate sponsor and over the communicationsnetwork, the second content item to one or more user devices. 34-38.(canceled)